The Federal Trade Commission has an excellent website to help kids be smarter consumers. It’s always a challenge to teach children to identify and challenge the bombardment of advertising messages they get every day. You Are Here’s West Terrace explains targeted marketing and evaluating the claims made in ads. There is also a section that explains how advertising can be helpful to consumers who are looking for products and brands and trying to understand their options. The Security Plaza teaches kids about the importance of protecting their personal information online and being careful about trusting messages that might not be from the businesses they claim. There are also resources for parents and teachers, who can use a reminder on those lessons as well.
Doc McStuffins Teaches Kids About Being Healthy on Disney
Posted on August 5, 2012 at 8:00 am
Disney’s delightful animated series, “Doc McStuffins,” is about a little girl who is inspired by her doctor mother to open up a “clinic” for her stuffed animals and toys. That gives the show a chance to talk to kids about making healthy choices. Kids can interact with the show and learn more with online activities and coloring sheets.
What makes this series especially welcome is the race of the lead character — she is African-American. The New York Times noted:
Despite a surge in multicultural cartoons, like Nickelodeon’s “Ni Hao, Kai-Lan,” designed to introduce Mandarin vocabulary words to preschoolers, and 40 years after Bill Cosby’s “Fat Albert,” black cartoon characters in leading roles are still rare. It’s considered an on-screen risk to make your main character a member of a minority, even in this post-“Dora the Explorer” age. Networks want to attract the broadest possible audience, but the real peril is in the toy aisle. From a business perspective, Disney and its rivals ultimately make most of these shows in the hope that they spawn mass-appeal toy lines. White dolls are the proven formula.
Encouraged by the reaction to multicultural casting in its live-action shows (“A.N.T. Farm”), Disney figured it was a risk worth taking. The company also spotted a hole in the market. The last major preschool cartoon to have a black focus was Mr. Cosby’s “Little Bill,” which ended five years ago on Nickelodeon. Race may have factored into Disney’s thinking in other ways. “Doc McStuffins” is mostly designed to entertain, a minus for parents of preschoolers, who typically want educational components (like the way Dora teaches Spanish and problem solving). A positive message about racial diversity helps fix that problem, as do messages about health and hygiene.
If you want to watch a movie that will remind you of what we love most about the wonderful country we celebrate this week, try America’s Heart and Soul. If Norman Rockwell made a movie, this would be it. If “America the Beautiful” was a movie, this would be it. If America had a home move, this would be it. And if we ever needed a reminder of of what can be proud of, what we aspire to, what we stand for — this is it. Plus, it is a lot of fun and that rare treat, a movie for the whole family.
I love Entertainment Weekly‘s lists of under-appreciated films and the current issue’s list includes some of my favorites, the movies I am constantly begging people to try. It is a great chance to see some wonderful films, and in may you will also have the pleasure of seeing some of today’s most accomplished performers in their early years.Some I was especially excited to see included:
Happy Accidents Marisa Tomei has not had much luck with guys, until this new man (Vincent D’Onofrio), who seems great except for this one small problem — he says he is from the future.
Next Stop Wonderland Like “Happy Accidents,” directed by Brad Anderson, this one stars a radiant Hope Davis. We know long before she does that she is destined to fall in love with a man she won’t meet until the very end of the film.
Backbeat Once upon a time, five boys from Liverpool left England to play at a club in Germany. This is the story of the earliest days of the Beatles, from the perspective of Stu Sutcliffe, an integral part of the beginning of the group (though he was more interested in art than music).
The Daytrippers Hope Davis plays a woman who discovers that her husband (Stanley Tucci) may be unfaithful. So she and her whole family get into her parents’ car to drive to his office and find out. Co-starring Parker Posey, Liev Schreiber, and Anne Meara, with a small gem of a very brief performance by Marcia Gay Harden.
Fly Away Home Before she was hanging out with vampires in “True Blood” and speaking with an American accent, Anna Paquin starred in this exquisite fact-based film about a girl who is adopted by a flock of baby geese and has to teach them to fly to safety.
The Iron Giant Before he made “The Incredibles” and “Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol” director Brad Bird made this marvelous animated film about a boy who befriends a robot.
Love and Basketball About eighty percent love and twenty percent basketball, this is a romance about two basketball-loving kids (Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps) who go one-on-one in both games for almost twenty years before they get it right.
Contest: Scholastic’s “Chicken Little & More Zany Animal Stories”
Posted on June 24, 2012 at 8:05 am
I’m thrilled to have two copies of Chicken Little & More Zany Animal Stories to give away. Scholastic’s wonderful series always has the best in children’s literature, gently animated and beautifully read. This latest in the series includes:
CHICKEN LITTLE (Written and illustrated by Rebecca Emberley and Ed Emberley, narrated by Walter Mayes) A bold and colorful retelling of a classic tale! Children will delight as a crazy-eyed chicken and all his panicked friends try to run away from a falling sky.
THE GREAT WHITE MAN-EATING SHARK (Written by Margaret Mahy, illustrated by Jonathan Allen) Norvin, a boy who closely resembles a shark, uses his talents to scare away all the swimmers at Caramel Cove except for the one female shark in love. Help!
THE THREE-LEGGED CAT (Written by Margaret Mahy, illustrated by Jonathan Allen) Mrs. Gimble’s peg-leg cat, Tom, is taken for a hat and a ride atop her rascally roving brother’s bald head in this hilarious tale of mistaken identity.
DOOBY DOOBY MOO (Written by Doreen Cronin, illustrated by Betsy Lewin, narrated by Randy Travis) While Farmer Brown tries to figure out what the animals are up to, Duck is determined to enter the talent show contest and win!
To enter: Send me an email at moviemom@moviemom.com with Chicken Little in the subject line and tell me about your favorite hat (I hope it wasn’t a three-legged cat!). Don’t forget your address! (US addresses only.) I will pick a winner on July 1, 2012. Good luck!
to give away. Scholastic’s wonderful series always has the best in children’s literature, gently animated and beautifully read. This latest in the series includes: